Inheriting Photographs

I talk to people everyday who are struggling with how to keep their massive photo collection organized. For many those pictures span several decades and include a combination of old prints and digital photographs. The goal is that we get those photographs all organized and in one place. And for many that is enough of a task to keep them busy for years, but what happens when we also inherit our parents massive photo collection? How do those photographs fit into our own collection? Do we have a moral responsibility to take in their collection of pictures? Or is your family debating who gets to have the photos?

I’ve recently found myself working through this dilemma with my own family. My parents are taking some major downsizing steps. They have been snowbirds for years, splitting their time equally between homes in Pennsylvania and Florida. A few health challenges are making the trek to Florida impossible, so they are leaving my sister and I to completely empty that Florida home. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania my mom is on a major clean out binge preparing for the items they are having shipped up from Florida to arrive. It likely isn’t necessary to get rid of as much stuff as she is, but she’s on a mission.

Apparently there is a moment in life where you look at everything you are surrounded by and feel an urge to start eliminating stuff. I experienced this with my mother-in-law when she downsized too. Every time we would show up at her home she would attempt to give us something. Sometimes that was a random trinket, but others it was an important piece of family nostalgia. There literally were times where my husband and I were surprised by “Do you want these old slides from when you were little or should I get rid of them”. So we frequently would find ourselves toting something random home that she threatened to throw out and my husband just wasn’t prepared to say goodbye to. I have an actual 1960’s toboggan in my garage to prove it. And for those who don’t know, I live in Florida.

Eventually my mother-in-law downsized her entire four bedroom home to 600 sq ft. in an assisted living facility. That “mostly” put an end to the threats of lost nostalgia. When my own mom started to pull the same stunt, as she attempted to get me to take my great grandmothers bible, I was already familiar with how this was going to go.

Twice down this road now and honestly I have no answers on how to handle those random bits of nostalgia. I convinced my mom to hold on to the bible and I have a feeling our own children will be putting that toboggan in the trash someday. I like to think there will be some good conversations though… Like “why the hell do mom and dad have a toboggan in Florida?”. Or maybe as we get older we will guilt them into taking it. Tell them some grand story of the life of that toboggan and how it shaped who my husband is as a person (stories I’ve yet to hear, but I’m sure my husband has them). Then gift it to them so they feel some sense of obligation to it. Likely it’ll still go in the trash, but perhaps that’s just all part of the cycle of stuff.

While I haven’t solved the “what do we do with mom and dads stuff” dilemma, I do have some thoughts on “what do we do with all of these photographs?” One of the things my mom has been trying to eliminate is all of the old photographs. Boxes and boxes of pictures. A few albums, but mostly just unorganized boxes. Every time I’m there she pulls some more pictures out and gives them to me, as though I am for some reason the person who should store every photograph our family has ever taken.

I was prepared for this situation. I talk to people all the time, often who have just lost parents, who now want to know what they should do with the old photographs. As unfortunate as it is to be helping parents downsize, coping with the loss of a parent while trying to decide what to do with their things is very painful. Deciding what to do with the photographs can be emotionally just too much to handle.

Here is the advise I give people with a little of my first hand experiences as I work through my parents downsizing.

1. Get digital copies.

I suggest the easy route by getting a scan with an app like Photomyne. With app you can even pass that project off to the kids. It’s super easy and likely a little more entertaining for them than cleaning out the pantry! Photomyne also allows you to add notes to the digital scan, so if a photo has text identifying people you can easily add that too.

If you have valuable photographs or antique pictures that you want the best quality scan of an at home scanner will provide a higher quality of scan. That process is a little more time consuming, but will give you the best results. For large images, pictures that are mounted or printed on a thick material, you will need a flatbed scanner like the Epson Flatbed Perfection V600. If you have stacks of photographs the Epson FastFoto is much quicker option. Bonus, the Epson FastFoto scans both the front and back, so it captures any notes that may have been written on the photo.

2. Take apart those old, out dated photo albums and put the best photos into new albums.

My parents have a scenic photo collection that is only special to them. But mixed in are a few photos of them together, enjoying life. Those are the keepers. I’m collecting those images and creating a new album. Next I’m going to take apart those (so very 1980) photo albums and put the pictures into new, matching photo albums. Why was it that we put pictures in a hodgepodge of albums back then? How nice would it be to have a few albums that all match and look nice together on a shelf? And with the nice 600 4×6 size books you can likely turn a dozen old albums into two or three great albums.

3. Not sure which sibling is even getting the photos? Or does nobody want to be the one responsible for the collection?!

Take those digital scans from every year and create a digital book. Chatbooks has great, easy to design digital books that would make a nice, simplified, life story. Create a copy for each sibling. “The story of our family” can be told in one beautiful book. It may be 50 pictures or 500 but that way everyone in the family has that nice collection to enjoy.

4. Are you inheriting pictures from before you were even born?

That’s your heritage and your children’s too, so it’s important that some of those are digitally preserved. Every old pal dad had in college isn’t something you need to keep, but locate those that are of him, his great smile, his personality. Get digital copies of those too. If you have pictures going back further, I’ve seen collections back to the 1850’s, those definitely need to be added to the collection. Use a flatbed scanner to digitize those images. Those tend to be the most fragile, exposing them to sun or water can definitely destroy them. Collect those and organize them in boxes that are light tight and archival.

5. Include everyone (grand kids too!) in their photo heritage.

Start a family heritage folder on your computer. Take all of those scans and collect them in one place. Then give each family member their own flash drive.

I have a running family folder that has pictures from this year but also goes all the way back to my daughters great, great, great grandma! I’ve collected the photo story of our heritage and put it in one place. As you are inheriting old photographs and adding them to your collection, start a folder that is all about your family history. You can then easily share those with each family member on a customized flash drive.

How are you organizing the photographs you’ve inherited? I’d love to hear how you’ve gone about this project too. There really is no right or wrong answer to how you do it, as long as you’re doing it! I hear too many stories of regret when those old photographs were accidentally thrown out, lost or somehow destroyed. If you’re organizing and digitizing those pictures, no matter how you do it, you’ll be thankful you did!

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